Aston Martin is known for many things—beautiful styling, sonorous V-12 engines, an “in” with James Bond, to name a few—but advanced alternative powertrain research and development isn’t exactly one of them. Well, at least until now. Aston has announced that it is fielding a hydrogen-powered Rapide S race car in the 2013 24 Hours of Nürburgring contest in Germany. Never mind that many automakers’ focus on alternative powertrains has, of late, drifted from hydrogen—Aston Martin appears to have a legitimate prototype in hand.

Intriguingly, the special Rapide S race car can run on gasoline, hydrogen, or a mixture of both. Aston thus is dubbing the car the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S, to reflect the twin-turbocharged, 5.9-liter V-12 engine’s hybrid fuel-taking nature. (It’s worth noting that this race car probably is a lot more powerful than the turbo-less civilian Rapide S, which makes 550 horsepower.) The car’s hydrogen fuel is stored in four carbon-fiber tanks—two are located where the front passenger seat normally would be, and two are in the trunk—and together hold 7.7 pounds of hydrogen at a little over 5000 psi. During the grueling Nürburgring endurance race, the Hybrid Hydrogen Rapide S will run using a mixture of gasoline and hydrogen, but Aston Martin will run one lap during the race using only hydrogen power.